As in the previous study, we calculated the private and
marginal external costs for different transport modes. The private costs
are the costs for the user. For road transport these
include the vehicle purchase costs, insurances, maintenance, fuel
costs, etc. For regulated transport (bus, train, plane) this is the
ticket price. Marginal external costs are external because the user
does not take them into account when deciding to make a trip. They
are called marginal as we focus on the additional effect of that one
trip. We distinguish the following marginal external costs:

Congestion

Environment (air pollution and greenhouse gasses)

Noise

Safety

Infrastructure

Health

Internalization of external costs determines the extent to which
the user does take into account part of these external costs via
taxes and levies. In the case of full internalization, the user pays
for all the costs he causes via taxes and levies. Today, in most
cases, the user does not pay the full costs he causes.

In this study we calculated the private costs, marginal external
costs, and degree of internalization for all modes for the period
2000-2014, with an outlook towards 2016. Based on these calculations we assessed the evolution of the
degree of internalization over time. Is Flanders heading towards the
“polluter pays principle”? Which steps are needed to evolve to a better pricing?

To what extent does the transport user internalize their external
costs?

At the moment most users do not pay for the nuisances they cause. The
figure below shows the degree of internalization for the different modes
examined in this study. The numbers are relative: the sum of all
external costs equals 100 %. The small grey bars show to what extent the
taxes cover the marginal external costs. A negative tax represents a
subsidy. For cyclists, the marginal benefits are larger than the
marginal costs, hence the sum of external “costs” does not equal 100 %.